Well, with all the awards season hoopla, I’m going to throw out my best picture of 2008. For me, it had to be Wall-E. Yeah, no lead up. No drama. That’s just it.
It had everything. A message about being a good person . . .er, robot. About taking care of the earth. It was straight talk about how we could really screw this up if we aren’t careful. It was dystopian scifi. And hopeful scifi. It was slapstick and action pic. It was just plain beautiful to look at. And it was the most romantic movie of the year.
Yup. That’s right. Romantic. He’s not perfect. He’s short, with a dead-end job and a cockroach for a best friend. She’s got some issues too. She’s a little cold and obsessed with her job, and she vaporizes things with her finger. But, in spite of it all, they see the good in each other. They risk their lives for each other. They will do anything to help the other do the right thing. And they live happily ever after. Sigh. Grand. That’s romantic.
Plus, he’s a straight guy who digs musical theater. What ain’t to love about that? (Okay. I admit that’s stereotyping. But, you know.)
There wasn’t another movie last year that got me the way this one did. In an era when people are thinking about things like change, hope and the future, Wall-E was the right movie at the right time.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
What??!!! And I was so spitting mad about Wall-E beating out Kung Fu Panda at the Critic's Award last week for best animanted feature. I though KFP had all the inventiveness, humor, and heart that Wall-E lacked - That and it taught many lessons but never got unbearably preachy like WE did for me. Ah well, that is why they have these awards shows so we wrassle over them.
I did adore the Panda. The voice work was outstanding. But I never once forgot that I was watching an animated feature.
I hear you on the preaching. But the first section of Wall-E had such a lyrical quality, I was hooked from the start. And for some reason, I've noticed that I take preaching better from cartoon characters. Maybe it's all those years watching Jiminy Cricket telling me to do the right thing.
My prize for preachiest anime is Happy Feet - that COULD have been so good without that. Agreed that first half of Wall-E was the better part - once the "humans" entered and the exposition began they lost me.
Funnily, the human bits seemed least human. But we did get an extended Fred Willard bit, so that balances it some.
Post a Comment